


I'm a can on a string, you're on the end

by kimabutch (CWoodP)



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brock in Mr Ceiling, Gen, Harm to Children, Horror, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Physical Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Minor Character Death, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:27:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23440912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CWoodP/pseuds/kimabutch
Summary: Looking through Rakefine's things after his death, Sasha finds telegrams from no one.Or, what if Paris wasn't the first time Brock sent her telegrams?
Relationships: Brock & Sasha Racket
Comments: 20
Kudos: 43





	I'm a can on a string, you're on the end

**Author's Note:**

> Please, please check the tags for content warnings — this is the closest thing to horror that I've ever written, and was vaguely inspired by a Magnus Archives episode. 
> 
> Title is from Would You Rather by Phoebe Bridgers. Thank you to Redd, Maple, and Heather for reading this first, and also to everyone who had to hear me talk about this for literally months before I wrote it.

Rakefine is dead.

He’s dead, and Sasha couldn’t stay away from his house, had to see what was there, in the cabinets that she’d never managed to open up. She’d found some things, too, before she’d heard the sounds of Barrett’s guys breaking through the back door and she’d fled into the night. 

Now, well-hidden in the attic of an abandoned Upper London house, she rifles through what few items she’d managed to grab. There are some nice-looking pieces of jewelry that Sasha figures she might be able to fence — better not let Bi Ming know about them, though, he wouldn’t like her taking things from Rakefine even if he were dead. Some paperwork that looked important on first glance but on closer inspection is just some financial records. A dagger, and not even a good one — the idiot probably didn’t even know how to use it, for all he’d told her about not using hers. But most intriguing is the large brown folder, marked in Rakefine’s annoyingly neat cursive: “Sasha.” 

She opens it eagerly, and is surprised but not disappointed to find a large stack of telegrams, neatly clipped together. Her heart skips a beat as she glances over the telegram on top, addressed to “Sasha Racket.” It’s dated almost eight years ago — couldn’t have been more than a month after Rakefine had locked her up. She’s so excited at the telegram that she forgets, for a moment, to be angry at Rakefine for how long he’d kept this from her: she’s never been sent a telegram before, but she’s always known that Rakefine was a bastard.

Her enthusiasm falters, though, when she finally looks at the typed message:

“CIWIEM OEWPEOF EROIER CNIC SLE NVISUIOWE PSE MVWIE OA XVNMX QNCE CWNERIWER PPIEIW”

It’s in code, it must be. That should be exciting and point to its importance, but Eldarion tried to teach her ciphers for almost a year before she gave up. They’re like locks, Eldarion had said, puzzles to try to figure out, but locks made sense — there was one right way to do them, not a million possible answers. The letters were lying, basically, and Sasha had never been great at lies. 

She tries to work it out for a moment, but gives up when she feels a headache coming on. Maybe it’s not even code. Maybe someone’s just playing a weird prank. She scans the telegram for more clues before realizing that there’s no sender. She didn’t even know that was possible but, well, she’s never gotten one of these before. Could it be from Barrett? What could he possibly get out of that?

Frustrated, she looks at the next few telegrams. They’re in chronological order, all dated within weeks of each other, all addressed to her, and all in the same gibberish. She’s about to start flipping through the papers at random until her eye catches on a word tucked in the middle of the sixth telegram:

NWEIRE EOWOE CMOENC OSP ITHURTS NSJDSOI OWIE MCWIERWE LSLDK SUHGIE”

She freezes, staring at the paper in her hand. 

_It hurts._

It can’t be in code if it’s got a normal word in the middle, right? She racks her brains, trying desperately to remember if Eldarion ever said anything about that. 

_It hurts._

What could that even mean, anyways? A threat from Barrett, warning about how much it’ll hurt? No, he lies, but he’s not that cryptic. Is someone kidnapped? If they were, why would they send a telegram, especially one without their name? And who would send that to her? She’s barely been able to get herself free. She wouldn’t be any use helping someone else, everyone else knows that, unless — her mind drifts to Brock, his skinny pre-teen face lit with a dopey smile. It’s been what, ten years since he disappeared? Two years before the first telegram in the pile?

Old hope rises like bile in her throat, but she pushes it down. It’s stupid to hope. Nothing good’s ever come from hoping, not for her. And if this is him, it was too long ago to help him. It just makes it worse, knowing that he was in pain. 

But she’s got to know. 

She keeps reading, scanning each message even closer now for any English words. The next three telegrams return to meaningless gibberish, but her quickened breath hitches as she reads the fourth:

“PWECCMS HUVTS IT HURTS JECSCP BHOP STDP SEOP STOP STOP”

It’s been a long time since she heard the sounds of Brock in pain, but she can still remember it, from times when Barrett wouldn’t let her take the fall for him. He was never as good at it as her, never learned how to screw his face right and not let them know how much it hurt. She thinks, for a second, that he couldn’t possibly have lasted the months of pain between this telegram and the first — and immediately hates herself for the thought. Any scenario where he’s alive would be good, right? Even if he’d have had to prove his tolerance for pain?

She doesn’t want to imagine the circumstances where he would have learned that. Fuck, she can’t fathom how he might have been able to send telegrams while being — she doesn’t want to know. She doesn’t want to think of why they’re mostly gibberish, what that could possibly mean. 

She doesn’t want to, but she can’t ignore him. She can’t let him go a second time.

The telegrams, sent every week or two, continue the same way for over a year: snippets of English among lines of gibberish. The same words appear over and over again, placed differently in the telegrams:

“HELP WOIE CNIE ORTIY VN EO NO NO NONONONO HELPNCKWE NO PLEASE” 

Or

“HURTSITHURTS CNWIER IIEWR MCEI ZPOE TOOMUCH PLEASE IWEHURTSIOWE HURTSHELP”

Or

“TOOMUC HTOOLOUD TOO MAN YTOOMUCHTO O LOUD STOP TOOMAN Y ”

She nearly shouts when she reads that one — wants to scream at the old slip of paper, beg it to tell her what it was that there were too many of, what exactly was too much for him, even as she might not want to know. 

But no, she’s good at keeping quiet. That’s all she’s good at. She keeps reading. 

As she makes her way through the stack of telegrams, she notices for the first time that there’s a divide halfway through, where the paper becomes suddenly newer. The date on the first of these newer telegrams confirms her suspicions: it was sent only three years ago, almost four and a half years after the preceding letter, another mess of pleading gibberish. 

She barely has time to wonder if there are telegrams missing — but why would Rakefine do that? — before she reads the message itself and stops in her tracks. It’s only three words, arranged neatly in the centre of the note:

“I MISS YOU.”

She stares at it in confusion. Aside from the age of the paper, the telegram seems the same as the others, addressed to her but with no clues as to its sender. Is it a different person? Was it even Brock? But no — who else would miss her? But if the pain was gone, if he had escaped, why hadn’t he tried to find her? If he missed her, why didn’t he —

She flips to the next telegram. 

“I MISS YOU.”

The same words, the same arrangement. Only the date has changed, four weeks later than the previous. 

“I MISS YOU.” 

The next telegram is the same, sent ten days later. 

“I MISS YOU.”

Three weeks later.

“I MISS YOU” 

A month and a half later. 

Note after note, the same thing, until they’re etched into her mind. _I miss you_. Until the words start to feel like the meaningless gibberish of the earliest telegrams — _I miss you I miss you Imissyou I mis syo u._ She tries to imagine Brock saying those words, just those three words, nothing else, no “I missed you, Sasha, where did you go?” or “we missed you at the football game, good thing though, they tried to steal our ball.” Just _I miss you_. It sounds wrong, too stark, the image of him in her head blank of his usual smile. 

“Where’d you get yourself now, Brock?” she whispers, almost silently. She tastes a trickle of salt on her lips and realizes numbly that she’s crying. Stupid. None of this will help. 

She flicks through the last telegrams, every one of them identical save for the date. The last is from two months ago. _I miss you._ Nothing more. 

She wants to hope that this is a new lead, to be excited — shouldn’t she be excited, when she’s thought for so long he was dead? She wants to be furious — at Rakefine for hiding the telegrams from her, at Barrett for taking him away. She wants to miss Brock, but all she can hear are his screams. 

She wants to feel anything, but she’s just tired and scared. Familiar emotions. 

Sasha stuffs the telegrams back in the folder, shoves it into her jacket, and starts out the attic window. 

Rakefine’s dead, and she’s got to find somewhere to go. 


End file.
